


I Am But a Ship Stuck in the Sand

by GlassScaffolding



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Family, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Post-Film, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Whump, but I would rather not catch anyone off guard, but they're immortal??, it's complicated and ambiguous as to the intent, not explicitly or a lot but god is it there and leering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25320031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassScaffolding/pseuds/GlassScaffolding
Summary: Booker lost his first family despite his best efforts to keep them, and was consumed by grief. Then he drove his new family away, desperate to escape from it.He thought he was alone, that he knew loneliness, but now he knows he was wrong.How can he survive, when both living and dying are such impossible options? How can he find his way back, when he has lived for so long lost?A fic starting with the end of the film, and exploring family what it means to be family. Tags will be added as is appropriate.
Comments: 30
Kudos: 164





	1. London in May

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I am Nothing Without Love" by Nate Ruess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, the first chapter is a retelling of Booker's banishment from his point of view. Third person, present tense, unbeta-ed, so if there's any spelling or tense mistakes, please give me a shout. Enjoy. :)

It’s a cold day for London in May. Clouds crowd the sky, and Booker feels trapped. It’s going to rain soon, he reckons, from the pressure building between his ears. It’s long overdue. 

He’s sipping some cheap brandy, the burn feeling like bad penance, when Nile joins him on the balcony. He’s not sure what he expects. He likes the kid - she’s determined and compassionate and doesn’t look at him like he’s kicked her dog. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but Nicky’s hurt expression stings far more than Joe’s anger. And Andy… He wishes she hated him, and he hates her for not wanting to give up like he does, just a little bit.

“How’s it going?” Fuck, he wished he was more drunk for this, but he doesn’t want them to see him destroy himself, not yet. They must all know what’s coming. 

“They’re still deciding,” she murmurs. She seems so tired. Any other day Booker would offer her a drink and someone who knows what it's like to lose everything. But he can’t, and he won’t be able to, and maybe by the time they reunite, she won't pity him or resent him, she’ll just understand. 

Fuck. Maybe he did have enough to drink. He loved Nicky and Joe, more than almost anything, and Andy more than that. They were his family, and he would do almost anything for them. Fuck. He just thought-

It didn’t matter. Not anymore. 

“There’s not much to decide. It’s not like they can kill me.”

But there is, he knows it. His prison sentence. Booker wonders if they’ll give him the punishment Quynh did nothing to deserve: lock him up and throw away the key. Probably not, he decides. Maybe something far worse. Maybe they’ll just decide not to care anymore. Maybe they’ll just walk away from him entirely. 

For a moment he stares at everyone. Joe’s fury, Nicky’s disappointment, Andy’s sorrow. He loves them. He misses them already. He’s so sorry. He looks away. 

Nile’s fiddling with something, her own thoughts like a whirlpool. Her phone. Andy lived to surprise.

“Oh, she gave it back?”

Nicky had glanced up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Joe was gesturing wildly. Booker used to think he could read them so well. They probably thought the same thing. Now, he had no idea what was happening behind the glass. 

“Yeah.” That defeat.

“Talked to Copley. Said he could fix it.” The hesitation.

“Make it look like I was killed in action.” Was this it? All that came before abandoned?

“My family will mourn, but uh…” Grief.

“They’ll be able to move on.” Acceptance. Bargaining, maybe. That maybe, if it was repeated enough, it would be true. 

“Just like we did with my dad.”

Would Booker be able to do the same? Leave them behind, move on? 

“I just really wanna hear my mom’s voice one more time.”

It wasn’t the same. Nile didn’t ask for this, didn’t choose this. She was a good kid. She understood what grief was already. She didn’t need Booker’s heavy-handed allegory for that. But-

Damnit, he did understand. He had lost his family once. He did everything he could to keep them and he lost them all anyway. Now it was about to happen again, but this time it was all his fault. He  _ had _ chosen this. But he would give anything to go back, just once. To sit in their shitty apartment they had in the eighties when they settled here in London for close to a decade before moving on, eating whatever new dish Nicky had developed for the restaurant, listening to Joe play piano, dancing with Andy. A family. Fuck, just one last time, please, a night with his family. 

_ Gone. _

His eyes sting, so Booker turns away. The moving images of them hurt too much. 

“You’re a good kid, Nile,” he insists, “You’re going to be great for the team.”

There’s so much he wants to say: mourn, but move on, find something to live for. Make the most out of life. Carpe diem. Look after them as much as they look after you. They’re going to need you. Andy needs something, someone to live for. She has so much to teach and you have so much to learn. She needs a student, and you will be an excellent one, he can tell. Joe and Nicky need someone to look after. Let them guide you around the cities and streets of the world. Talk to them about faith and love as much as food and water and all the other things you need to live. Talk to them about your family, your friends, your life before. Talk to Andy too, about your dad. About the things you’re still looking forward to doing. You are going to be great for the team, Booker thinks, because you are going to save them.

But he doesn’t. She has so many responsibilities on her shoulders, she doesn’t need him pilling on so many more.

Seagulls fly overhead. They are laughing at him. They are waiting to pull apart his fallen pieces.

Booker claps Nile on the shoulder.

“You should head back inside. This is as much your choice as theirs.”

She doesn’t say anything, but he walks past her down to the waterfront. He could feel the disappointment piercing him. He can’t take it.

It’s a cold day. It’s London in May. Booker can feel the storm about to split open. He hears it coming, the crunch of the rocks under cheap boots.

He chucks a stone into the water. It sinks with an almighty slash, the ripples travelling far.

Andy stops next to him, and he can feel the first drops falling.

“There’s got to be a price.”

He nods, no voice left to agree. This is it.

“A hundred years from today, they’ll meet you here.”

A hundred years. A hundred years. A hundred years. It’s less than he deserves.

“Until then you’re alone.”

He’s been alone for so long now. But he knows this will be so much worse. 

God-fucking-damnit.

“I hoped for less,” Booker swallows heavily, “But I expected more.”

“Nile was going to let you off with an apology.”

Nile! It wasn’t enough that she was going to save all of them; she wanted to save him too. Whatever God she believed in, he wished he could believe in Them too. She was a good kid. He laughs. He hopes that generosity lasted. He loves her so intently for a moment.

“Just give her some time.” 

Andy had laughed too, and as much as Booker hates the storm, he thinks he might have just spotted the blue sky. 

But it’s still raining. And he knows when the clouds part, not all will be the same. And somethings won’t survive the downpour.

His voice is rough as he tells her, “I’m going to miss you.” His eyes are stinging again.

Booker can’t do this. He’s never been able to do this. He can’t bring his eyes to her, but he can’t leave her without one last embrace. He wraps his arms around her and she doesn’t fight it. She doesn’t hate him. But she knows this has to be goodbye too.

Booker pulls back. He’s worried if he doesn’t, he won’t let go, and it’s a fight he can’t win. 

He can’t look. He can’t not look. He musters any courage he has left as an eternal coward, and tries to commit her face to memory. Her green-blue eyes, her dark hair. The slope of her cheek bones and the slice of her nose. And as much as he will try to forget it, he knows that it’s her heartbroken expression that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Um…” Everything in life was an uphill battle. It always had been. “I won’t see you again.”

It’s a question, a statement, and a plea, all in one. She fixes his jacket, as if that will fix the canyon between them.

“Have a little faith, Book,” she tells him, and then, she leaves him.

He begs himself not to take a last look, but he does. It’s Joe whose gaze he meets. A gaze he cannot read, but Book tries to tell him that he understands. That he doesn’t hold it against him. That he’ll be okay. And then, Joe leaves too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Booker's been stuck in my head this whole time. All the other characters, I feel like they are complete: we either can clearly see where they have come from and where they are going, or they are in a super stable place. But Booker! He can go anywhere, character wise. I don't want him to be the bad guy in film two. He's tired, and depressed, and did an awful thing because he was desperate and felt so, so alone. I don't want to punish him, I just want to help him. Maybe I'm projecting too much here tho, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Paris in June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker makes his way back home, and remembers the ghosts that line those streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I really hope people don't get notifications for when I edit a chapter, cause i just occasionally notice a mistake and fix it. Eek! If you are getting notifications for edits, can someone please warn me! I am so, so sorry, and much obliged!

Booker doesn’t remember the first couple of weeks alone. He spent it so blackout drunk that even trying to think about it gives him a headache. He slept under bridges, in abandoned buildings, in parks. They have safe houses in London, and while he’s sure they will have jumped ship by now, he can’t bear to sleep there alone. 

The only reason he stops his all-out bender is walking up in the hospital with Copley leaning over him. He reaches for his gun only to realise that he’s in one of those shitty hospital gowns he’s seen on TV, and that all of his belongings seem to have relocated themselves elsewhere. 

Copley puts his hands up, “I’m here to help.”

Booker snorts, and pulls himself up.

“Chacun voit midi à sa porte,” he mutters, “Where am I?”

“Queen Elizabeth Hospital,” Copley answers immediately, hands still up, “You fell in the Thames-” Jumped, maybe, Booker could tell he was thinking- “Some passers by saw you, and called emergency services. Apparently your blood-alcohol concentration was .35 - that’s enough to kill someone, under the right circumstances.”

“But not me,” Booker sighs, and leans back down. 

Copley slowly lowers his hands, and pauses. He chooses his words carefully, like a surgeon considering his tools.

“Andy’s instructed me to erase you all from history. To make sure that people like Merrick-” he corrects himself, “That people like  _ me _ can’t use that information to pave a road to hell with good intentions.” 

People like him, Booker adds miserably to himself, people who want to take and take and are too afraid to  _ ask  _ before they remove the choice altogether.

Booker betrays them and gets banishment. Copley sells them out and gets a job. A stranger’s betrayal probably hurts a lot less than his own, and Copley was uniquely suited to the job, but it still twisted inside him. 

He tried to take their compliance. He tried to take away their free will. 

Justifying the decision was almost easy. He always expected them to escape, it’s what they did. Nicky and Joe could have done it on their own if Nile or Andy hadn’t shown up. He just thought, well, a couple of days of confinement, get their bloods taken, some scans, and then maybe, just maybe, after they had gotten away, Copley would call and tell him the good news. The silver bullet, just for him. 

“That also means keeping an eye on you,” Copley continues, much to Booker’s surprise. 

“I doubt she meant me, Copley, but thanks for the drop in.”

Copley ignored him, and picked up a manilla envelope to drop in his lap. 

“You’re a good forger Booker, probably the best I’ve ever seen. But it pays to be connected.”

Part of him wanted to act the petulant child and throw whatever Copley had acquired for him away, but temptation and his last molecule of sense won out. 

Inside was a burgundy passport, a handful of documents. French documents. French citizenship, a French passport. He flicked it open, and was surprised that the picture used seemed quite recent - 1970s, or 1980s maybe. The mullet was an awful idea, one that he wished Copley had already erased. But the name - Sebastian Book.

Ha. Booker wants to cry, wants to laugh, but he settles on an incredulous, “How did you…?”

“Two years, and many millions,” Copley replies with a slightly mug expression, “And, of course, I am  _ very  _ good.”

He nods his head at a black bag on a chair next to his bed.

“I took the liberty of getting you some new clothes. There’s also a wallet, and a phone. There’s a number for emergencies and an email for paperwork.”

Booker- Sebastian doesn’t know what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut. 

Copley gives him one more look over, then takes a step towards the door, “I’ve spoken to the doctor, you have leave when you like. But please, stick to dry land next time.”

Alone, Sebastian mused. It was time to go home. 

Paris has changed so much since he last lived here. When he had returned from the war, he had moved his family to the large city in a hope to avoid scandal and prying eyes. It was easier to avoid suspicion when no one knew your name. 

His wife, Marguerite, was relieved by the change: she hated how the village had whispered and scorned them. Her husband, the criminal. Her husband, who had come back from war alone. Her husband, who came back from war, from prison, without a scratch. Coward, they whispered, deserter. 

His sons, Amédée, Claude, and Jean Pierre, hated it. Hated him for a little bit too. 

Amédée was nineteen. They argued frequently. He had spent so much time defending his father, and now it was as though his hero had given up. Sebastian had stopped counterfeiting, and stopped teaching Amédée his old trade. Paris was a dangerous place, and the gangs would not accept anyone encroaching on their territory. Sebastian tried to explain it to him, tried to keep him safe. Tried to earn enough money, enough goodwill to get his son an apprenticeship that would keep him well fed and warm, but he was so angry. 

“You've abandoned us!” he railed against his father, “We will starve from your cowardice!”

It was June, a warm summer’s day. The sun was piercing, merciless. Sebastian made his way home after a hard day’s work through Paris’ squalid and crowded streets, hoping for nothing more than a drink and bite to eat. A couple of hours with his family, then Marguerite would head off to act as a night nanny for a well-to-do family across the city. 

As he turned the last corner, Sebastian could hear a scuffle, and see a crowd building. For Lord’s sake, did people have nothing better to do than fight amongst themselves? He put it in his mind to ignore it, and hoped it had all died down before he was to put Jean-Pierre to bed. Continuing his approach, he realised dully that they were gathered quite close to his home, and he would have to push through them to enter. 

Fights were common these days, the smack of bone against flesh as common as morning birds. Sebastian was ashamed to admit it became easier to ignore once he stopped trying to find out who was involved. He couldn’t say what made this time different than every time that had come before. Something about the voice shouting made him turn; it was familiar, like a well-loved jacket that let the rain in.

Amédée. Lip bloodied, shirt torn. One arm hung uselessly by his side. But there was a fire in his eyes, and a fury that struck cold in Sebastian’s heart. 

He pushed forward, ignoring complaints. His voice was lost in his throat. 

He couldn’t move fast enough.

His son was moving too slow, lurching when he should have been dodging.

He burst through the crowd, and a knife burst into his son’s stomach. 

Sebastian screamed. His world blurred, and his son’s face, filled with shock, pain, and a heartbreaking relief, turned upwards to him as he fell to the ground. 

Amédée. The boy he taught to walk, to talk, to dance and draw and fight. Amédée, his first born son, his hair a halo and eyes the sky, who would have stolen wings from Napoleon himself if it would let his family fly. 

Amédée’s blood stains his hands. He holds him tight as his son sputters and coughs and pulls on his shirt and Sebastian cries and begs the Lord for mercy. How could he let this happen, his son, his baby, his Amédée. 

Amédée is the first of his sons to fall before him. But he is not the last.

Sebastian walks through Paris on a sunny day in June. He gets as close as to where he and his family once lived as possible, although the street no longer exists. He pauses, and sends a prayer to a God he is sure does not care. 

Sebastian does not go inside Paris’ city walls often. They are filled with sharp memories. The last time he wandered these streets was almost a century ago, and the time before that was when his youngest son, Jean Pierre, passed away. But just beyond them is a cemetery. It is old, and expansive. The air is heavy there, and the ground soft. It calls to him, on darker nights.

Sebastian had picked his son’s last resting place alone. Marguerite had turned so quiet after Amédée had passed and tried as he could she would not talk about the funeral arrangements with him. It was a pauper’s grave but it was all that Sebastian could afford.

One day, on a slow and somber visit, he was shocked to find not a wooden cross, but a beautiful stone headstone. He looked around, and saw Nicolo waiting on the edge of the graveyard. 

Sebastian’s voice was thick with unnavigable emotions as he approached. 

“I- Thank you.”

Nicolo nodded, and sighed. He shook his head lightly, “I am sorry for your loss, Sebastian. I will say a prayer for him, and for your family.”

“It’s going to happen again,” he whimpered, knees shaking, “One day I will be standing here and it will not just be Amédée, it will be Claude, and Jean Pierre, and Marguerite too. All my family, gone, and I will be left alone.”

Nicolo stepped forward, and gave his shoulder a tight squeeze, “You will never be alone Sebastian. You will always have us.”

Sebastian was grateful for his company as he wept. Nicolo listened patiently as he told him about the fights and arguments they had, and kindly insisted that his son loved him. Loved him, maybe, but Sebastian had failed them all the same.

When Claude passed, it too was to violence - rebellion and uprisings tore through the city, and quiet, idealistic Claude was torn through too. Sebastian didn’t think he could survive the grief a second time, but he did. This time, it was Joseph that was waiting for him. 

Joseph was not like Nico. Nico was patience, light streaming through a stain-glass window, a merciful slice across the neck. Joseph was loud, in all the ways Nicolo was not. He fought loudly, he loved loudly, he was confident and courageous and  _ caring _ . When Sebastian was breaking down at his second son’s grave, he let him mourn but would not hear his self-pitying. As soon as Sebastian started to say that he should have done more, Joseph cut him off with a thunder.

“Don’t be stupid!” He snapped, filled with righteousness, “You did everything you could. You could have abandoned them to poverty, to grief, but you didn’t. You came back and did everything you could to do right by them. Your son grew up to be a  _ man _ , who believed in justice, and equality, and a better world. You should be proud of him, and of you.”

What followed was the first time Sebastian got so drunk he couldn’t remember anything by the next morning. He woke up in a house he had never seen before, in a village he had never heard of, surrounded by three people he had spent about two weeks with in total. But they hugged him and fed him, and by the time he returned to Paris, he felt that maybe he could find the beauty in the mundane that Joseph spent so much time waxing poetry about.

Marguerite was never the same after Amédée’s death, and with the passing of Claude she withdrew even further. It was not a surprise, then, when Sebastian awoke the morning of Claude’s anniversary to find her body cold. 

Jean Pierre accompanied him that time to the cemetery. Sebastian was surprised not just to find one of the immortals he had come to call friends, but all three of them. Andy embraced him for a long time, then Nicolo, and Joseph. Joe had brought flowers which he laid on her grave, and Nicolo volunteered to say a prayer. 

Jean Pierre was a smart young man, and was, by this point, looking more like his father’s brother than his son. Sebastian knew he was quick to realise that these people were older than they looked. He asked them questions about their travels and the languages they spoke. In return, they told Jean Pierre stories and showed him tricks. For the first time in a long time, there was something in Sebastian that lay quiet, and he laughed the night away, not tempted to drown his sorrows. Still, he was careful that his youngest son did not have too much to drink. The problem with never dying is that he no longer had to worry about little things such as alcohol poisoning, but Jean Pierre didn’t have that luxury.

When he half-carried his son to bed that night, he wondered how much time they had left. It was unlikely that Jean Pierre would meet the other three again; they came when Sebastian needed him, but they kept their distance otherwise. He hoped that one day his son would marry and he would be able to leave, comforted by the knowledge his son was in loving hands. Time, Sebastian reckoned, was the only thing he had enough of. 

But Jean Pierre- It was not enough.


	3. Marseille in August

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian leaves Paris, and makes his way south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I took a break and rewrote some of this chapter. The plot and events remain the same, I just added and omittted details, and in a couple of cases, added a pragraph or two. I wasn't happy with this chapter before, but I am much happier now. Anyway, if you happen to be rereading the chapter, I hope you enjoy it even more. :)

Paris in June was beautiful, a crowded, energetic city, but Sebastian could not stay for long. Every time he went back, every time an old building was demolished and another piece of his city was forgotten, he felt lost all over again. Onwards then was his only option.

He isn’t sure what his goal is. He considers taking the route of the Grand Armeé’s invasion of Russia, but it was a shit trip then and it probably wouldn’t be any better the second time round even without the hunger and hostility. The thought of it makes him shiver, so he heads south instead. 

Sebastian makes a journey of it, seeming as he has the time, and spends all of July walking. For being French and immortal to boot, there was so much of the country that was left unseen. He walks through National Parks and cities younger than he is. He spends nights in shitty motels, and at one point, a cabin he earmarks for a future safe-house. The paint is peeling off the walls, allowing for little spiders to take the house hostage. In the chimney, he finds a family of swallows who are disgruntled by his initial mistake of taking their nest for storm debris. As he lies awake that night, he can’t hear anything but the sound of wildlife. No cars, trucks, or even planes. It’s the easiest he sleeps in weeks. 

As Sebastian walks, he thinks. Thinks about his sons. About his wife. About the day he was married, and the day she died. He thinks about how the land has changed as he has passed through time, and how it has stayed the same. About how small everything has become, and yet, so empty. 

He thinks about Andy, even though he doesn’t want to. Joe and Nicky too. He’s known them for so long. They were there for him when he needed it. When Amédée passed, then Claude, and finally Jean Pierre. Joe and Nicky tried their best to help him when all of his family had left him. They let him fall in with them without complaint. Nicky cooked filling and familiar food, and Joe introduced him to literature and art from around the world.

But it’s only Andy that really understands. On the days that were dark, it was Andy who was sitting there by the fire, with a bottle of alcohol in hand. She didn’t talk. They just sat, and drank. And when he needed it, when Sebastian needed someone to hit and scream at and punish, she’s there for that too. 

Andy is the only one who understands what it’s like to lose the thing that made them whole. 

It got better over time. Well, not better, but he learned to live with it, and there were some days he almost forgot completely. They fought, and they trained, and travelled the world, and it felt so much like running away, but it _worked_ , so Sebastian doesn’t complain.

It was Andy who rechristened him. Told him bluntly that his name had served its use and that it was time for a new one. 

“Booker,” he decided, and she nodded and moved on. The world was growing more anglicised every day, and Sebastian was getting old-fashioned. Le Livre wasn’t a normal French surname to begin with, and in their line of work, anonymity was key. But it feels like another piece of himself that he gave up. He tried to talk to Nicolo- Nicky, about it at one point, but he just shrugged it off. What’s in a name? Sebastian, newly Booker, realised that they must have had so many names, seen so much of the world change, that it just doesn’t matter to them anymore.

New countries pop up and old governments fall, languages develop and names must move along with them. 

Booker. A new name. A new century. The same tired, drowning Sebastian. 

Sebastian arrives in Marseille in August. The Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde observes the city from on high, almost as old as he is. But he prefers the Abbaye Saint-Victor by the Old Port, for no better reason than it is older than Nicky and Joe both. They visited it together many years ago, before they split up. It was the first time that Sebastian had lived alone since the death of his youngest son. 

Just after the end of the first world war, Andy abruptly announced one day that she was taking a break, and walked off. The war had exhausted them all, and Booker thought nothing of it.

It happened, from time to time - they practically breathed each other’s air constantly, and it could get cloying. Andy was especially partial to little breaks, and would come back a couple of days later with renewed vigour, and another face to forget. The boys were happy to wait in Marseille; there was much to do and see, and Booker enjoyed speaking French again. Almost two weeks of dancing and sight-seeing later, he found Nicky and Joe discussing where to settle down. 

“We could head to South America,” Joe suggested, “It’s been a while. Go to Brazil, maybe.”

Nicky hmmed and ha-ed, “I don’t speak Portuguese. Anyway, I miss home. Let's go back to Genova.”

“It’s only been fifty years,” Joe fretted.

“Ti preoccupi troppo, hayati. We could rent that little studio again Joe! The one with the balcony!”

Joe rolled his eyes, but he was beginning to smile, “It’s probably been bombed by now.”

Nicky’s beaming face would not be dimmed, especially not by Joe’s teasing. He leaned forward and pressed their lips together before pulling back and quipping, “You just don’t appreciate a good view.”

As Joe spluttered in indignation, Booker took the chance to interrupt, “So, what’s the job?”

Joe looked at him with confusion, but Nicky replied, “Job? No job, I just like to go back from time to time. Anyway, I’m sure Joe and I will be able to find some work.”

Oh. Joe and- “How long will Andy be gone for?”

Nicky and Joe exchanged a look and some rapid Arabic. Nicky looked confused, but Joe shook his head. They seemed to be debating something. Booker hadn’t picked up much of the language, but he thought he heard some numbers. Dates maybe? And place names. Then Joe turned to him and switched back to French. Italian was fine, and they all were used to speaking English these days, but he appreciated it when they made the effort for him.

“We do this sometimes. Andy needs space, and we split up for five years. Nicky and I… We buy an apartment, find work. In a cafe, or shop, perhaps.”

Nicky grins, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I forgot that you and Andy worked when we were in Genova last time.”

“Eighteen sixty one,” Joe remembers fondly, “When you became Italian…”

He laughed, “It was an easy move.”

Eighteen sixty-one… Joe and Nicky had taken a series of jobs in Italy. Andy wasn’t fussed by the idea and instead the two of them had headed north - very far north, all the way to Russia. 

It was the first time Sebastian had been in the country since the war. They went to Moscow, briefly, then moved across the continent, drinking until they passed out, then fighting recklessly until they died, over and over. 

What Booker remembered best from the trip was a long stay in a cabin in the middle of a snow storm. The days were short, and dark, but the cabin was well stocked. Enough food to last, and, more importantly, enough vodka to pickle them. 

It was difficult for them to get drunk. Their bodies recovered too quickly, and the constant expenditure of energy from death and rebirth resulted in almost constant hunger. When together, they spent most of their earnings not on artillery, although that was considerable, but on food. It was why Nicky was such a good cook, and why the rest of it appreciated it so much. But this also meant that they were often drinking while well-fed. That was their third biggest expenditure: alcohol. 

Andy had a bottle of vodka already down, and had started her second. She took long swigs, staring blankly into the fire. 

It was a quiet night. She had told him a couple of stories from before Booker had joined the group. It was usually Nicky or Joe who told him such things. Andy kept quiet and sat in the corner, avoiding his gaze. When he had first awoken, struggling from breath, first told them what he had seen in his dreams of the drowning lady, she left and they didn’t see her for a month. They heard whispers of her from across many countries, a wave of blood in her midst. Once he realised how upset his visions made her, he began lying about the subject of his nightmares. His sons, he claimed, or Marguerite. He was sure they all knew the truth, but it was a lie of kindness. 

Andy had grown quiet after starting a story that began in England, and Booker had been drawn into his own memories of his first war on foreign soil.

“Everything dies,” she had told him sharply, “But death is a mercy we aren’t gifted.”

And that had been that, for a while. Nothing but the crackling fire and the sound of the wind warring against the windows. 

“Everything dies,” she muttered again before getting clumsily to her feet. 

“Boss?” Booker asked softy from where he was lying on the fire-warmed flagstones. He was wearing all the clothes he owned, but he was still shivering. 

But Andy seemed not to even notice the cold as she stripped off her top layers, until she wore nothing but a thin shirt and trousers. She had pulled off her boots to get the rest of her things off, but she didn’t spare him a second glance before walking towards the door. 

Booker pulled himself up with as much grace as a new-born deer, “Boss!”

She ignored him, and wrenched open the front door. They had dug a small way out for supplies, each side lined with walls of snow and ice. 

“Andy!” He protested, grabbing her arm, “What are you-”

But she spun around, knife to his throat and a watery fury in her eyes. “Let go, Sebastian, or you will find your head no longer connected to your body,” she seethed. 

Booker had no idea whether she meant it or not. The fear almost choked him, but he tightened his grip.

The knife slashed through his throat. Andy had underestimated - his spinal cord remained intact, but that felt like the only thing she had not cut. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He slapped a hand to his neck as his knees collapsed from under him. 

Andy looked down at him, no mercy, no doubt, and walked out the door. 

Immortality was not fun and games. It had its downsides, ones that Booker was already intimately familiar with. The never ending story of outliving anyone you ever cared about, or would ever care about. He felt it burning him alive. He could not imagine how Andy felt in that moment, or in any other of her long life.

Dying hurt. It didn’t stop hurting, not after the first, not the fifth, not the fiftieth. The hatred Booker had glimpsed in Andy’s eyes hurt more. He wished, like every time that proceded the death of Jean Pierre, that it was the last death he would be burdened to experience.

But life had an annoying habit of going on regardless of his thoughts and feelings.

Coming back usually hurt too, but that required being able to _feel_ his body, and the cold had stolen that from him. Booker stumbled to his feet, his clothes stiff with his blood, and slammed the door closed. Snow had fallen inside, but he was more concerned about the fire which had gone out with the wind that had flanked the windows and barrelled through the open door. 

Andy. He needed to find Andy, but if he went out now, he would fall asleep and the both of them would be lost to the blizzard. Maybe only for a couple of weeks, if they were lucky, but if they were not, Booker didn’t want to risk someone finding his frozen, undead body in the spring. 

He took his time, warming back up first. He wished he could change his clothes, but he was wearing all that he owned. Then he gathered a bag of supplies, and headed back out into the frozen tundra.

Booker found Andy curled up around an empty bottle, body so cold she barely unfurled as he carried her. They didn’t speak for the rest of their time in the cabin, working and eating and even drinking in silence. The day the thaw started, it was like a spell had broken. 

“You didn’t deserve to die like that,” she started, eyes fixed on the stain his blood had left on the ground, but standing tall, “It was-”

“I understand,” Booker dismissed, organising the supplies they had left. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“Booker-”

“You knew I was going to survive, what does it matter?” he insisted. He stopped what he was doing, and met her gaze, “But Andy, we do this together. This whole thing might be the shittiest game in cosmic existence, but… We’re still in it, together.”

Andy nodded and that was the end of it. When they met back up with Nicky and Joe, Andy kept looking at him, as if wondering when he would tell all, but he kept his mouth shut. Joe and Nicky… They could never understand.

Marseille, it was a name on the breeze, the suggestion of something half remembered made whole. Walking the streets was like walking in a waking dream, so familiar, but different too. But unlike Paris, the changes were a welcome surprise. Most of his memories before centered around anger or alcohol. It seemed far away now, like a great fire had burned away the feelings of abandonment and left fertile fields ready for a fresh harvest. Sebastian stands on the harbour finding a calmness in the gentle sea tides. There was a warm breeze, and the evening was just beginning to cool. 

So many of the important moments in his life since his first death seemed to happen when he was far from sober, or resulted in him reaching for his hip-flask. It was a bad habit he couldn’t break. It was so normal when he was with Andy; they drank as often as they drew breath. Nicky and Joe seemed to disapprove, but when Sebastian began talking about his family, they seemed at a loss of what to say, or to do. It was easier to ignore the raging alcoholism than deal with the mess that was his psyche. When he drank, he slept better and died less. He could put his mind to mundane things. It was better for them all.

Even on his walk down to Marseille, surrounded by beauty, he had found time to drink. Sebastian pulled the flask from his pocket. It was from his time in the Armée, although he couldn’t exactly place where he had picked it up. It was the only thing he owned from before. Everything else… Clothes rip, books burn, but the flask… It had hit and scratched and _shot at_ and it had survived. 

Sebastian lifted his arm up, ready to throw-

But he couldn’t. He brought it back to his chest. One more piece of his past he wasn’t quite ready to give up. He tucked it in his rucksack, and began his search for a place to stay. Marseille in August was a beautiful city. People moved in and out all the time, tourists flocked there every summer, and the port brought business from all across the world. It was a melting pot of cultures and languages. It was somewhere Sebastian wouldn’t stick out, and maybe, for a little while, a place he could call home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, when Noriko finds Booker he's in Marseille - it makes sense, a huge old port city that is known for being a melting pot of people, language, and cultures. It feels like the type of place an immortal would gravitate to, and be able to blend in unnoticed. This fic isn't comic compliant, and if you've read the comics you know why, but I did like the detail.
> 
> Oh! And in 1861 Genova, which was previously part of the Sardinia Kingdom, became part of the Italian states, and thus, Nicolo became Italian. :D 
> 
> I hope that you have enjoyed it. :)


End file.
